For the Brooklyn-born Mizrahi, creating inexpensive women’s clothing for Target is a way to test his theory that one can have an impact on fashion even without making a $20,000 dress that gets worn once at the Emmys. He hopes to accomplish it on the backs of the humble millions who just want something nice to wear to work for under $50. For the Minneapolis-based Target, with 1,200 stores around the country and annual sales of about $37 billion, the Mizrahi deal helped solidify its position as the alternative to Wal-Mart, a place for people who believe that quotidian life holds satisfactions beyond getting the lowest price on paper towels. Target’s self-proclaimed mission is to “wow” and “delight” its “guests” (otherwise known as “customers”) with the discovery that a product that virtually defines utilitarianism–a toilet-bowl brush, say–can be appreciated as an object, and even give pleasure with its design. The paradoxical term for this business model is “upscale discounter,” and over the past five years, says Christine Augustine, a senior analyst with Bear Stearns, “they have been hugely successful at it.”
The effort began in 1998, when Target burst on the national scene by helping to sponsor the renovation of the Washington Monument. In a flash of inspiration it chose architect Michael Graves to design the construction scaffolding, which he did in his trademark cerulean blue. In the happy aftermath, Graves was invited to bring his postmodern esthetic–clean-lined but never severe–to Target’s housewares line. At that time, a Target executive estimates, at least 70 percent of its customers had no idea who Graves was. Among his first offerings was a whimsical, beehive-shaped teakettle, a cousin to the iconic version he had designed in 1985 for the Italian manufacturer Alessi. (The Alessi version now sells for $124; Target’s model is priced at $19.99.) With nearly two dozen designers in his firm devoted to servicing Target, Graves–who –was partially paralyzed by a mysterious illness this year and, at 69, has continued to work from the hospital–has expanded the line to more than 600 items. They include a fondue set, a paper shredder, a retractable clothesline–and a toilet-bowl brush–all of which combine with the com-pany’s ultrahip advertising to create an aura of cool that rubs off on even the most mundane washcloth for sale under the same roof.
Much of the credit for Graves’s success undoubtedly belongs to Target’s relentlessly upbeat and rigorously enforced corporate culture, which creates a uniquely efficient system for figuring out what consumers want to buy. Target begins with years’ worth of data on which items sold well and where, and adds extensive field research in Europe, in Japan and on the streets of America, observing and even photo-graphing passersby to see what they wear and buy. The fruits of this research are shared with the design partners, including Graves, Mizrahi and Mossimo Giannulli, who are given a price point to aim for and a sense of how Target wants to “position” its brand. What they actually produce is up to them, but the finished product still must pass muster with Target’s all-powerful buyers, who decide what the stores will actually stock. Together with Target’s in-house designers, the buyers are “the guardrails for our creativity,” says Michael Alexin, vice president for product development. Their role is to ride herd on innovation, channeling it within “the boundaries of what our guests will accept and what they won’t.”
By contrast, another famous designer, Philippe Starck (best known in this country for his high-concept boutique hotels), did not appear to work so well within the Target system. His line of 52 products, including beard trimmers and bottle warmers, sold inconsistently after its debut in May 2002, and his one-season contract with Target was not renewed. Starck pushed Target to introduce the line at one of the temples of modern design, the Milan Furniture Fair, and the company’s initial response, according to Starck’s American representative, Michele Caniato, was, “What the hell are you talking about?” A source familiar with the relationship said Starck failed to take time to butter up Target’s buyers. But the real issue may have been that his designs were just too precious for Target’s consumers. A spectacularly beautiful baby monitor meant to be worn as a necklace by the mother was a notable failure. “It was fantastic, a piece of jewelry,” Caniato says. “We were sure it would sell. But people didn’t understand it.” In retrospect, though, it makes sense; mothers don’t want to make a fashion statement with their baby monitors, they want something familiar and reassuring.
The larger lesson is that design alone is not enough to sell in the mass market; the object must make inherent sense to consumers. Target is applying that insight to its newest partnership, with Virgin (the British airline/entertainment company), to produce a line of “personal electronics” (about a dozen items including CD and MP3 players, telephones and clock radios) under the name Virgin Pulse. The designs are stylish but not extreme, and most of the effort went into ergonomics and functionality. Designers noticed that runners, for example, were strapping their CD players to their left hands, but reaching across their bodies to push the buttons with their right forefingers; the design they came up with puts the buttons within reach of the fingers of the same hand that holds the case. “They are not so technologically advanced that they appeal only to a very narrow market,” says Frances Farrow, CEO of Virgin USA. “That’s not the market Target is in.” She adds: “We will have things which really resonate with consumers, and things which won’t. And nobody can tell us now which is which.”
Hopes are running high for the partnership with Mizrahi, which had its origins two years ago, when a licensing agent managed to get the designer and Target executives together in a room. They clicked immediately. Mizrahi’s career as a fashion designer had been sidetracked (except for his successful shoe line) since Chanel had pulled the plug in 1998 on his high-end ready-to-wear label. But his ancillary career as a writer, performer and television personality had been flourishing, keeping up the value of the Mizrahi brand. He briefly considered whether Sarah Jessica Parker would wear his dresses again if he went into business with a discount chain, and decided she probably wouldn’t care. (In fact, he has relaunched his couture line this year, making one-of-a-kind dresses and gowns under the label Isaac Mizrahi to Order.) “There’s something so righteous about doing this for Target,” he says, “whereas if I did it for another chain it would be like, ‘Oh, he’s selling out’.”
Without asking, we can guess what that “other chain” is. Wal-Mart has more than twice as many stores and six times Target’s sales, and it’s still growing (sales at stores open at least a year were up 5.6 percent in September, compared with 7.2 percent at Target). Target executives admit they will never be able to compete with the Big Brother of Bentonville in wringing every last penny out of the price of a can of motor oil. The danger they face is of being squeezed from above, by traditional department stores cutting their prices, while Wal-Mart upgrades its budget offerings. This is already happening, as Wal-Mart buyers have begun scrutinizing merchandise ranging from small appliances to cargo pants. “They are making a bigger push into apparel and aiming for a more compelling mix of national and private brands,” Augustine says. Still, one would have to think such a strategy is self-limiting for a chain whose entire raison d’etre is to offer the lowest possible price on everything. If Wal-Mart makes a deal with a designer to get a quarter for every blouse it sells… whose pocket will the quarter come out of?
For Target, Mizrahi offered the chance to fill a niche (upscale adult women’s casual clothing) uncovered by its highly successful Mossimo line, which appeals mostly to women younger than 30. Mizrahi sketched his designs, sewed them up and flew them to Target headquarters for a private fashion show in early 2002. “It was such a good meeting,” he recalls. “I knew I wouldn’t have to stretch and lie and cajole to get what I wanted. They wanted me to do just what I wanted to do.”
Mizrahi describes his approach as “design, not as fashion, but as fashionable clothes”–as distinguished from “obsessive crazy stuff that will only look good for 15 minutes.” He talks passionately about the opportunity to “influence the culture” through Target’s vast market reach and buying clout. To an outsider, perhaps, it’s not entirely clear whether he’s influencing the culture or the other way round. His vision must be grounded in the stacks of consumer data compiled by Target, filtered through the judgment of the gimlet-eyed buyers, and ultimately meet the test of mass acceptance. When you think of designers who really did change history, you think of Christian Dior, who sized up the changed world of postwar Europe and decreed the electrifying “New Look” of 1947. Could Mizrahi impose an equivalently revolutionary vision on a $37 billion public company that also sells dog food?
Well, he has his own opinion on the question: “I have always wanted to make a pointed sneaker, and I couldn’t get it done when I was on my own. No one will make you a mold for under 50,000 pairs. But when I signed up with Target, it was like the first thing I did. It’s really setting me free!”
